Teardrops
by Emerith
Summary: A Babe short with a song stuck somewhere in the middle. Steph's had a rough couple of weeks. Rating for a little language.


_Category:_Romance / Drama

_Pairing:_ Babe

_Disclaimer:_ Not my characters, they both belong to JE, if you don't recognize the character, I pulled it from the abyss, and promptly put them back when I was done.

_Warning!!_ Just some language and a sniffle or two

_Author's Note:_ Ok, so I blame my evil mp3 player for this entire fiasco. It got stuck on repeat, in some twisted work of fate, and my muse jumped on her damn Harley, cuffed my ass to the muffler and took off down the interstate….It's not really a songfic.. Just another short that happens to have a song stuck in the middle of it. Mostly, I was just grateful to find out my muse hadn't jumped off a 30 story building, so I rode the wave. As I'm sure you'll notice, my characters aren't exactly the same ones JE writes, I like to think mine are a little less irritating.

**Teardrops**

I swiped at my eyes with one hand, steadying the wheel with the other so I wouldn't sideswipe a car while the tears half blinded me. It was only a ten minute drive from the Haywood office to my apartment, but I still wanted to make it in one piece.. Well, kind of.

I'd just finished another favor for Ranger. Each time I do that man a favor the aftermath gets just a little bit worse than the time before.

I'd been doing a lot of favors lately.

--

Four months ago Joe Morelli had come to my apartment in the middle of the night to tell me he was leaving town. Back to back assignments would take him out of the state for a few months at the least.

Before he left, he'd wanted me to know, he didn't expect anything from me while he was gone.

He said he'd done a lot of thinking, and he had finally realized that the things he wanted in his future weren't the kind of things he was going to get from a woman who could talk down psychos over the phone and was calm with bombs strapped to her. I didn't even argue with him, mostly I sat on my bed, stunned, mouth hanging open and a glazed look in my eyes.

I walked around in a gray cloud for two days after Joe walked out of my apartment that day. I was finally broken out of my funk by a text message on the third morning. Ranger needed help for a lunchtime distraction job.

As I dressed to meet Ranger, I realized I'd been a dolt. As I'd dug through my closet looking for a suitable dress, I hadn't had a skip in mind, I'd had Ranger. He was the one I was always looking to impress when I dressed for these things.

That had to mean something.

I took a moment and added up all of the other little things I found myself doing day to day with Ranger in mind.

It was a big pile.

Morelli was right, in more ways then he could have realized. There were things I wanted in my future that he never would have given me either. Things I always seemed to look for elsewhere, one particular elsewhere.

For three months I took every odd job Ranger threw my way, in hopes of getting more time alone with the Man of Mystery.

I got exactly what I wanted.

Stakeouts, distraction jobs, a redecorating, and they even let me come along on a takedown. For three months I was the Merry Men's little sister, and the woman Ranger dragged into dark alley's to paw at.

He never asked if I was still on with Morelli, and I never offered the information. But I never once called him on poaching either. I figured if the grapevine hadn't gotten the news to him yet, he'd ask if he wanted to know.

We spent plenty of time in the alley beside the bonds office, partaking in some very heavy petting, but it never went any further than that. Ranger's night time visits were painfully absent. Never once did I wake to that strong shadow falling over my bed, filling me with a sense of safety and need. I missed that, but this was progress. Ranger was slowly showing me bits and pieces of himself that I'd never seen before. This was special, this could truly be the beginning of something, something right.

--

One month ago Ranger became suddenly very distant. Instead of picking up on my chatter during a stakeout one night and humoring me as he had been those past months, he was back to one word answers and grunts. The shield had fallen firmly back in place over the previous day, and I didn't know what to do to get him back. So I tried honesty.

"Ranger, you're really quiet tonight, very Man of Mystery. Is there something up? Anything I can help with?" If only I'd known how much I would regret asking. Ignorance would have been bliss.

A minute of silence passed, and I wasn't sure he was going to answer. Then he took a deep breath, and it seemed like he sucked up all the air in the truck, for a moment I worried there would be none left for my next breath. Then he spoke, and suddenly I wasn't so interested in breathing anyway.

"It's Maria. She called this morning and told me she's ready move back here. I love her, and I've missed her so much, but I'm nervous about her coming back."

I held my face firmly in check, trying with every bit of power in my body not to let him notice the reaction that was going on inside my heart and mind. _He loved this woman!? Who the hell was she!?_

"She knows about RangeMan, I've told her about it over the years we've been apart.. But she's never actually been exposed to what I do, and I just don't know for certain how she's going to take it. I don't want to scare her away."

_Oh God!_ She must have been an old girlfriend, or something. Whoever she was, she meant something big to Ranger, and had for a long time. And from the looks of it, she was coming back. Which meant I was going to be back out in the cold.

--

I spent the past month listening to Ranger and the Merry Men talk about Maria incessantly. Like she was God's gift to Men.

More like they were looking through the biggest pair of rose colored glasses God had ever made.

If they were to be believed, Maria was; the most beautiful creature to ever walk the Earth, so smart NASA should be recruiting her, and sweeter then a Butterscotch Krimpet.

Oh Puhhleeaassee!

Today had been the straw that broke the camel's back.

I had just finished running some searches for Ranger when he popped his head into my cubicle and asked if I wanted to grab dinner with him at Shorty's. I, of course, said yes.

At that point, time with Ranger was like a drug, sweet torture. I knew that Maria's flight was due in this week, but not what day. I knew that any time I spent alone with him would be spent listening to him talk about her. But I also knew that once this woman came to town, my heart wouldn't be able to bear seeing them together. I knew this was the last I'd have him. So I would take him any way I could get him.

I used my eyes to memorize the lines and planes of his face. The way his ponytail brushed between his shoulder blades when his head moved. The look of happiness hiding just behind his eyes. A look I didn't put there.

We were just stepping off the elevator into the garage when Ranger's cell phone started to ring. He held a finger up for me to wait for him and stepped a few feet away, lowering his already deep voice as he answered his phone, so that I could hear the rhythmic soothing note of that bass rumble, but not decipher what it was saying. Within a minute he flipped the phone shut and turned back to me. The smile on his face would have made heaven jealous of it's beauty.

"She's here."

Two simple words, two words that lanced through my heart like a heated needle. He didn't need to say anymore, but I still heard him calling over my shoulder as I maneuvered through the garage to my own car.

"..busy for a few days.. Want you to meet… wonderful person, Babe"

I nodded along as he spoke, never turning back to him as I reached my car and yanked the door open.

"Goodbye Ranger." The words came out quiet, riding on the frothed white cap of a sob that I refused to let break over me until the door was shut firmly behind me and the key in the ignition. As my tires eased onto the paved blacktop of Haywood street, the tears rapidly drifted from my eyes, dragging slick black lines of mascara down my face.

--

So now here I was, driving back to my cold apartment. Not a physical cold, not something any blanket could chase away, but an emotional cold that would always dance along my nerves. Every corner of that apartment held some reminder of the man I'd just left behind. A man who would probably never grace my doorway again.

I reached across the console, switching on the radio in hopes of drowning out the screaming, crying voice at the back of my head. As soon as my finger flipped the dial I was surrounded by the smoky voice of Delilah as the nightly radio love show kicked into high gear. Self preservation should have made me shut the radio right back off, but that haunting voice at the back of my head said it wouldn't hurt to have some extra heartbreak to wrap around myself.

What a load of bull.

I left it on anyway.

A sad watery smile flitted across my face as I recognized the music Delilah had introduced.

--

Taylor Swift - Teardrops on my Guitar

Drew looks at me, I fake a smile so he won't see  
That I want and I'm needing everything that we should be  
I'll bet she's beautiful, that girl he talks about  
And she's got everything that I have to live without

Drew talks to me, I laugh cause it's so damn funny  
That I can't even see anyone when he's with me  
He says he's so in love, he's finally got it right,  
I wonder if he knows he's all I think about at night

He's the reason for the teardrops on my guitar  
The only thing that keeps me wishing on a wishing star  
He's the song in the car I keep singing, don't know why I do

Drew walks by me, can he tell that I can't breathe?  
And there he goes, so perfectly,  
The kind of flawless I wish I could be  
She'd better hold him tight, give him all her love  
Look in those beautiful eyes and know she's lucky cause

He's the reason for the teardrops on my guitar  
The only thing that keeps me wishing on a wishing star  
He's the song in the car I keep singing, don't know why I do

So I drive home alone, as I turn out the light  
I'll put his picture down and maybe  
Get some sleep tonight

He's the reason for the teardrops on my guitar  
The only one who's got enough of me to break my heart  
He's the song in the car I keep singing, don't know why I do  
He's the time taken up, but there's never enough  
And he's all that I need to fall into..

Drew looks at me, I fake a smile so he won't see.

--

I stuffed another spoonful of Chunky Monkey in my mouth and settled more firmly into the corner of the couch. Tugging the blanket around me as the cold of the ice cream permeated my bones.

It had been two hours since I'd gotten home. Two hours, and two tubs of my two favorite men. Ben & Jerry. They might have millions of other women, but they never spent our time alone talking about them. I guess some men are reliable after all.

I pulled more firmly on the blanket, using the corner to block the black t-shirt I was wearing from my own sight. I needed the feel of that Ranger scented cotton comfort against my skin, but I didn't need the visual reminder that all I had left of him now was a shirt.

A knocking started at the door as I dug my spoon back into the ice cream. As I listened to the steady sound of knuckles against wood I wondered what the consequences of ignoring it might be.

Depending on who it was, a non-answer wouldn't discourage them. Hell, half the people who knocked on that door would have given up and walked in by now. I decided I'd reward them for their patience in knocking by actually answering the door. Though, if I looked half as crappy as I felt, it might not be a reward but a punishment to have to see me.

I wrapped the blanket tightly around myself, only the collar of the shirt and a hint of my bare legs peeking through, took a futile swipe at the bags and streaks of mascara decorating the underside of my eyes, and made my way to the door.

The door swung open just as I reached for the knob and I sucked in air through clenched lips and teeth.

There he stood, looking even more perfect then when I'd left him. He must have retreated to his apartment to pretty himself up before he went to meet the love of his life.

Bitch.

Ranger's face held a soft smile when the door first flung open, but as his eyes traveled the length of me, something in them darkened and the smile was quickly chased away by storm clouds gliding through his features.

"I wanted you to meet someone," he said quietly as he strode forward, backing me into my apartment. That was when I noticed the very feminine set of legs hiding behind his.

I fought to breathe, fought to keep the room from spinning, fought to hear over the sound of my own blood rushing in my ears.

_Why would he bring her here!?_ What did I ever do to him to deserve this torture?

Ranger stepped to the side and I was slammed with the full force of the beauty of the woman who had been standing behind him.

She was my height, but slimmer, a more athletic build then I could claim to have. Of course, she must work out, she's Ranger's Woman. And beautiful, god was she beautiful. Big expressive brown eyes set in a face the color of coffee with light cream, a scarlet dash of lips that held just the right amount of pout to be sexy without being petulant. All of it surrounded by a fall of perfectly straight silky black hair that neatly danced at the top of her waist.

She was perfect. Perfectly everything I'd never be, and perfect for Ranger.

"Maria, I'd like you to meet Stephanie Plum." His voice raked through my heart, starting a heat soaked pain that radiated through my chest, making my breath tight.

_Stephanie Plum_. How long had it been since I'd heard Ranger call me anything other than Babe?

"Babe," _Babe! _He called me Babe in front of her!? How dare he! I started to work up a good little rage of righteous indignation.

"I want you to meet Marietta Manoso." Oh god! It's worse then I thought, they're already married, he's been lying to me this whole time! "My little sister."

My breath shuddered out in a ragged sigh and my knees wobbled. Ranger's arm slid like quicksilver under the blanket, wrapping tighly around my waist and pulling me into his side.

"It's nice to finally meet you Stephanie," Maria's words glided past her lips in a falsetto version of that smooth Manoso voice. "I've heard so much about you these past few years."

I coughed, cleared my throat. My hands fluttered nervously with the edges of the blanket, pulling it tighter around me, pinching Rangers arm between the material and my body. I tried to speak but the words came out low and scratchy, I swallowed, cleared my throat and tried again.

"It's very nice to meet you Maria. I've heard plenty about you in the past month, but… I can't say I had the privilege of knowing that you were a Manoso, just that you were very much loved by Ranger and the Merry Men."

"Babe." And that one word said it all. Said that I was silly to think that he would be stringing me along all this time if there was someone else in his life. Ranger was too honorable of a man to do that. He never would have let me think he felt something for me if the feeling wasn't genuine.

"Merry Men?" Maria asked in an unsure but amused voice.

"Oh yeah, Steph has a lot of interesting quirks that I'm sure you'll love just as much as I do." His gaze shifted from his sister to me, catching me in those swirling brown depths. "If Stephanie would like to go get dressed, she can explain who the Merry Men are in the car, on the way to see Mama and Papa." There was a question in his eyes, a softness, uncertainty. I slid one hand from the blanket, raising it to glide along his cheek.

"I'd love to meet your parents, Batman."

Maria's laugh trailed behind me as I shut the bedroom door and leaned my head back against it.

The heat tinged pain that had lanced through my chest a few short moments before had turned to a nice warm tingle, stretching out from my chest to fill my entire body.

Maybe I had been right after all. Maybe this was the beginning of something right.

The end


End file.
